If you visit here regularly, you know I'm critical of the speed of play in major league baseball games. In the past decade, games have gotten considerably longer primarily due to batters wandering in and out of the box and pitchers hiking around the mound whenever the mood strikes. But, some of the other changes implemented by MLB have done little to make it more watchable.Ten days ago, George Will, advocated change so the game can preserve itself. I don't always agree with Mr. Will politically, but when he writes about baseball, I pay close attention and we usually see eye to eye.
Here is his editorial from the July 9th Washington Post titled: "Opinion: The time has come to save baseball by changing the rules."
Even if you belong in the basket of deplorables —
Americans uninterested in baseball — you should be intrigued by the sport’s
current problems. At the all-star break, Major League Baseball’s 2021 season is
demonstrating, redundantly, that the quality of the game as entertainment is
declining. Paradoxically, the problems arise from reasonable behavior based on
abundant accurate information.
Improved technology generates data about pitches’ spin
rates, the launch angles of batters’ swings, particular batters’ tendencies on
particular pitches and much more. Improved kinesiology increases pitching
velocity. The results include a slower pace of play, diminished action, fewer
balls in play and more of them handled by radically repositioned infielders.
Five seasons ago, there were 3,294 more hits than strikeouts. Three seasons ago, strikeouts edged past hits. Writer
Jayson Stark notes that until 2018 there had never been a month with
more strikeouts than hits. This April there were almost 1,100 more strikeouts
than hits, and writer Tyler Kepner says this season is on a pace for approximately 5,000
more strikeouts than hits. Twenty-four
percent of plate appearances end in
strikeouts (they are increasing for the 16th consecutive season, partly because
today’s average fastball’s velocity is 93.8 mph, 2.7 mph more than 14 years ago. As of mid-June, the .238 collective major league batting average was 15
points below 2019. In 2015, teams shifted infielders on 9.6 percent of all pitches. This season, teams are shifting on
32 percent (usually an infielder in shallow right field), which will erase perhaps 600 hits.
With pitchers dawdling to recover between high-exertion,
high-velocity pitches and with 36 percent of at-bats ending with home runs, strikeouts or
walks, around four minutes pass, on average, between balls put in play.
Players spend much more time with leather on their hands than with wood in
their hands, but have fewer and fewer opportunities to display their
athleticism as fielders. Home runs predominate because scoring by hitting a
ball far over defensive shifts is more likely than hitting three singles,
through shifts, off someone throwing 98 mph fastballs and 90 mph secondary
pitches. This means fewer base runners. In 2021, there probably will be 1,000 fewer stolen bases than 10 years ago.
Writer Tom Verducci notes that in the last 26 minutes of 2020’s most-watched
game, the final World Series game, just two balls were put in play. In this game,
the ball was put in play every 6.5 minutes, and half the outs were strikeouts.
More pitches and less contact. Longer games (13 minutes 17 seconds longer than a decade ago)
and less action. No wonder fans who have been neurologically rewired by their
digital devices’ speeds are seeking other entertainments. Major league
attendance has fallen 14 percent from its 2007 peak.
Last season, MLB made an action-creating change — a runner is placed
on second base to begin each extra half-inning. And MLB is experimenting with
other changes in various minor leagues.
Because pitching velocity is suffocating offense, MLB
could move the pitcher’s mound back a foot (from today’s 60
feet six inches) to give batters more reaction time. The changed physiology of
pitchers has, in effect, moved the mound closer to home plate:
In the 1950s, the Yankee’s 5-foot 10-inch Whitey Ford had a Hall of Fame career. Today, 6-foot 4-inch pitchers, with long arms and long strides, release
the ball significantly closer to the plate than Ford did.
Requiring four infielders to be on the infield dirt — or,
even bolder, requiring two infielders to be on the dirt on each side of second
base — as the pitch is thrown, would reduce reliance on home runs, which are
four seconds of action, followed by a leisurely 360-foot trot. A 20-second pitch clock might reduce velocity by reducing pitchers’
between-pitches recovery time. And by quickening baseball’s tempo, the clock
might prevent batters from wandering away from the batter’s box and ruminating
between pitches. Stolen bases might increase if pitchers had to step off the
rubber before throwing to first base. After a walk and then a steal, one single
would produce a score.
Baseball fans, a
temperamentally conservative tribe, viscerally oppose de jure changes to their
game. They must, however, acknowledge the damage done to it by this century’s
cumulatively momentous de facto changes in the way it is played. What Edmund
Burke said of states is pertinent: “A state without the means of some change is without
the means of its conservation.”
